By Peter Koenig for the Saker Blog
Transcript of a presentation at a Webinar sponsored by the Chongyang Institute of Renmin University, Beijing
23 September 2021
An early priority for China – at least two to three decades back – was to reduce Carbon Dioxide (CO2) output, as well as that of other greenhouse gases, such as methane, nitrous oxide, ozone and some artificial chemicals such as chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs), to eventually reach carbon neutrality, meaning, eliminating as much CO2 as is produced, by 2050.
With industrialization and excessive consumption, the output of CO2 and other greenhouse gases has increased rapidly and especially in later years. And this despite repeated pledges during numerous UN-sponsored Environmental Conferences, to reduce the world’s carbon footprint.
Global Carbon dioxide levels reached 419 parts per million (ppm) in May 2021, the highest since CO2 output has been measured 63 years ago. Compare this to China’s CO2 output of 409 ppm by 2018.
China is often blamed as being the world’s largest polluter which may be the case in absolute terms, as China also has the world’s largest population. However, putting China’s CO2 output in perspective, on a per capita basis, China ranks only 5rd, after Australia, the US, Russia and Germany:
– Australia: 17.27 tons per capita
– USA: 15.52 tons p/c
– Russia: 11.33 tons p/c
– Germany: 8.52 tons p/c
– China: 7.38 tons p/c (less than half the US level)
– India: 1.91 tons p/c
These are 2019 figures.
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China’s 14th Five Year Plan (14th FYP), published in March 2021, included 2025 energy and carbon intensity reduction targets, as well as a mid-point non-fossil share target to achieve her nationally determined contributions, or NDC.
At China’s Leaders Climate Summit in April 2021, President Xi Jinping announced that China will strictly control coal generation until 2025 when she will start to gradually phase out of coal.
President Xi just announced at the UN General Assembly in NYC of 2021, that China seizes using coal powered plants as of now.
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To understand the concept and the lingo of the different terms and terminologies, lets back track a bit.
It all began decades ago – with the First United Nations Conference on Environment and Development (UNCED), also known as the ‘Earth Summit’, held in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, from 3-14 June 1992. It set the stage for the reduction of greenhouse gases, the most important of which is Carbon Dioxide.
CO2 emissions are toxic and harmful for the environment and life, when produced in excess.
However, lets also keep in mind – CO2 is one of the most important gases on earth, because the plants use it to produce carbohydrates in a process called photosynthesis. Since humans and animals depend on plants for food, thus, CO2 is necessary for the survival of life on earth.
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In the meantime, there have been numerous climate change conferences around the world, most of them UN-sponsored, the latest one – if I’m not wrong, was the Santiago Climate Change Conference, the 25th so-called Conference of the Parties (COP25) of December 2019, meaning the 25th conference to the United Nations Framework Convention for Climate Change (UNFCCC).
The names of these conferences and their results are often confusing, at times also controversial, especially between the industrialized countries and the so-called developing countries, or the Global South.
A chief reason for potential conflicts is rapid industrialization – excessive consumption, particularly in the West, or the Global North. The output of CO2 and other greenhouse gases has increased rapidly and unequally between the Global North and the Global South. Yet, developing countries are often asked to take similar measure to reduce greenhouse gases, in particular, CO2.
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A safe level of CO2 in the air, according to one of the first 21st Century UN Conferences – it may have been the 2009 Copenhagen Conference, was suggested to be 350 ppm. This figure was already exceeded in 1987, reaching, as mentioned before, 419 ppm in May 2021.
Despite covid, the concentration has not been significantly changed for the better. In some cases, to the contrary.
Despite pledges to the contrary, the main source of energy has changed little in the last 20 years. Hydrocarbons are still king. Today’s world economy still depends on some 84% of hydrocarbons (petrol, gas, coal) of all energy used, as compared to 86% at the turn of the century.
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What does Carbon Neutral mean?
Carbon neutral – the amount of CO₂ emissions put into the atmosphere is the same as the amount of CO2 removed from the atmosphere. The impact is neutral. This is not making it actively worse, but it doesn’t make it better either, especially when the average output is above 400 ppm, meaning above the considered “safe” target of 350 ppm.
Carbon negative, or carbon net zero might be a step in the right direction. It means the amount of CO₂ removed from the atmosphere, is bigger than the CO₂ output. The impact is positive; something is actively done to reduce the harm to the atmosphere – and to improve the air for every breathing life.
We have the historical responsibility to urgently cleaning up the atmosphere to eventually get back to the civilized level of 275 ppm.
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Since the beginning of human civilization, our atmosphere contained about 275 ppm of carbon dioxide. According to renowned climatologist Dr. James Hansen, these are the conditions under which civilization developed and to which life on earth adapted. Going beyond this indicator, risks disrupting our global climate system’s 1,000,000+ years of relative stability. Beginning in the 18th century, with the age of industrialization, humans began to burn coal, gas, and oil to produce energy and goods. The carbon in the atmosphere began to rise, at first slowly and, then ever more rapidly.
Many of the activities we do every day, rely on energy sources that emit carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases. We’re redistributing millions and millions of years’ worth of carbon, once stored beneath the earth as fossil fuels, and releasing it into the atmosphere.
Just a thought.
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Apologies for this long background. The environmental agenda is very complex.
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As to China – China’s Ministry of Environment and Ecology publishes regularly CO2 concentration levels. China’s greenhouse gas emission in 2018 reached 409.4 ppm with an estimated annual growth of 1.3%.
While in full action towards Carbon neutrality, China was hosting the 5th Ministerial meeting on Climate Action in April 2021. A virtual event attended by the European Union and Canada, plus ministers and representatives from 35 governments and international organizations, from all the world’s regions.
The meeting aimed at drastically reducing the carbon level in the air, through significant shifts from fossil fuel energy to alternative sources for the upcoming UN Climate Change Conference (COP26), hosted by the UK, from 31 October to 12 November 2021 in Glasgow.
The Glasgow Conference will focus at implementation of the Paris Agreement in a comprehensive, balanced and effective manner, building a fair global climate governance system, equitable and centered on win-win cooperation – with focus on renewable energy, the phase-out of fossil fuels, zero-emissions vehicles, resilience-building, carbon-pricing, green finance, nature-based climate solutions such as afforestation and reforestation, biodiversity conservation, and waste management.
China is already pushing ahead with this agenda.
The Ministers asked for an equitable transition throughout the implementation process. This may include financial, technological and capacity building support to developing countries, especially the poorest and most vulnerable ones. Implementation of the Paris Agreement should also reflect the principle of common but differentiated responsibilities and respective capabilities, in the light of different national circumstances.
China’s ambitious agenda to reach carbon neutrality or better, by 2050, includes …
- Investing in projects of liquid hydrogen which can be used, for instance, in hydrogen fuel cell automobiles, and Hydrogen metallurgy, a technology that applies hydrogen instead of carbon.
- Third generation photovoltaic energy with efficiency above 40%, is another sector where China’s world-class development and vast demands may attract global investors.
- In addition, China has ambitious research projects into generating energy from photosynthesis, the process plants use to transform carbon dioxide and sunlight into energy. It’s an ecosystem’s way of producing fuel at a high level of efficiency (>90%) without polluting residues.
- Green parks in urban areas and reforestation as well as improved water management, so as to reduce areas of frequent droughts and convert them into green agricultural crop lands.
- At the same time, China is seeking new alternative energy investments abroad, such as an automotive lithium-ion battery production in Germany – a planned investment of 1.8 billion euros.
And much more….
China is not only on the right track to seek environment-friendly renewable sources of energy, thus, reducing her carbon footprint – but to exceed the 2050 net zero emissions target into a carbon negative project.
China, as in other matters of importance to the world’s societies, just to mention one – poverty alleviation – may be again an example on environmental progress. Towards a human society with shared benefits for all.
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Peter Koenig is a geopolitical analyst and a former Senior Economist at the World Bank and the World Health Organization (WHO), where he has worked for over 30 years on water and environment around the world. He lectures at universities in the US, Europe and South America. He writes regularly for online journals and is the author of Implosion – An Economic Thriller about War, Environmental Destruction and Corporate Greed; and co-author of Cynthia McKinney’s book “When China Sneezes: From the Coronavirus Lockdown to the Global Politico-Economic Crisis” (Clarity Press – November 1, 2020)
Peter Koenig is a Research Associate of the Centre for Research on Globalization. He is also is a non-resident Sr. Fellow of the Chongyang Institute of Renmin University, Beijing.
Well, the China boom is over, although a better political class will keep the Kingdom more afloat than the combined West. The signs have been around as early as 2015 (concrete consumption peaking) or 2017 (new car sales peaking). All due to the energy shortage creating so much trouble all over the world. There is no return and no way out of this predicament.
And by 2050, I read here, its terminal decline will start. Surely they will expand abroad before then, since the ending of one child policy means just that.
Corroborating this (first link), we are past peak oil, probably at peak coal, ten years out from peak natgas. And China is doing what it can, like moving to the left politically and favoring workers over enterprises, and cracking down on capital flight, by making crypto illegal (second link). But it is not a solvable problem. The Evergrande collapse is just a symptom.
https://www.zerohedge.com/commodities/china-enforces-power-rationing-major-industrial-hubs-amid-shortages-and-climate-push
https://www.zerohedge.com/markets/china-declares-all-virtual-currency-transactions-illegal-sending-crypto-prices-tumbling
drb, 99% of what you read in ZeroHedge pertaining to China is usually nonsense, or a bit of reality mixed with a whole lot of nonsense. Truly …
Crypto has not been made illegal. The Chinese republished their guidance that simply says .. do not do illegal transactions. It has been there for 5 years, exactly the same. Bloomberg published the nonsense first and then ZeroHedge picked it up.
You may run a cryptocurrency business in China, as long as you are legally registered and there is a list of things that you may not do .. like scam people. This has been their position for five years and nothing has changed except they say people in China that aid overseas companies that provide crypto services to the Chinese may be investigated. Again, what you’d expect. China threw out the miners, that was messing with power in areas that could ill afford it. (That was their published reason, there is actually another reason – many miners still are active in China – they are the ones that do not try to cheat or coerce China .. a very long story but a classic story in the cryptocurrency history.)
Same with all the Evergrande stories from Western Sources. It is quite nonsense .. China will not bail them out but make them pay back every penny from investors and then let them burn. (Investors are mainly as we can see on the western side of the pond trying out financialization of the Chinese economy). In China, the story is that that it is Western Hype. In fact, their shares traded 14% up this morning.
Anyway, most if not all Western sources are notoriously unreliable on China.
Well, it sure created a drop for all crypto. Just the same, these are symptoms which were heralded by hard economic data years prior, and the hard economic data were themselves symptoms. China is well managed (its leftward creep is close to my heart) but not impervious to the laws of physics, that is all. Going forward, do we really expect China to surf through this winter’s natgas crisis unscathed? It seems impossible. People are paying through the nose for a LNG tanker, and surely Russia will send tankers to where the spot price is highest. Other that that, I do agree with you about the limited use of zerohedge when it comes to China matters. I posted old data, but current coal data are at least worrisome.
Anthropogenic climate change is nonsense. Even worst-case scenarios offered by climate change-believing scientists says only a tiny change can happen by drastically cutting production. Short of exterminating a vast swath of the earth’s population (which may be happening on purpose as we type), there is no cutting production. Furthermore, the type of government control required to do this is a greater harm than the small harms of climate change: humanity can adapt to climate change and still be human; we cannot adapt to a global Soviet Union and still be human.
“Carbon Neutral” is a nonsense term, more akin to Catholic Penance than anything to do with science.
“I promise to plant a forest (which will be harvested in 20 years), hire 100 connected people to each say 100 Hail Mary’s, pay $1M to a guy in a funny hat who has a suspicious love of children, and then I can build a factory!”
Yes, we all know that. But, we can clean up our pollution at least.
General comment, what Peter Koenig has here for us in his transcript, is no less than humanity’s first step into energy development that is not based on hydrocarbons. Technically it must of course spin your head in thinking about this and this is where we are on our way to on our earth. It is not a momentary development but a long term human technological development – Like the move from horse and buggy to space ships.
We’re not talking Anthropogenic climate change here, and I trust the commentary following will know that and not get stuck in inane debates about ‘climate change’. Kindly read and comment with discernment.
Let me say that stronger. Just please CAN the comments about climate change and see if you can figure what this transcript is all about. If it was a climate change (of any nature) transcript, rest assured we would not have posted it here. At the Saker Blog there is a long-standing policy that climate change discussions must please be done elsewhere.
Ok, China goes green.
So, then who is Australia going to export their dirty coal and legacy in the ground CO2 “KPI” index to?
They better stop bleating about nuclear subs and get to doing their job of managing their country – technology is changing.
Why has China not included their nuclear fusion project in their low carbon drive?
Hydrogen is at best an energy carrier ie. storage of energy not as fuel. Hydrogen is very abundant on our planet but mostly in the form of H2O, and to break this bond requires more energy than is released by hydrogen combustion.
As for photovoltaic energy…even at 40% it’s not going to make a big dent…it is currently not possible for renewable energy to currently replace fossil fuels…
Serbian Girl, I don’t think this is a short process at all and I agree with you that it is currently not possible for renewables to replace fossil fuels. But here China is setting a scene and stating their goals and objectives.
If you are talking about the ‘Plasma Sun’ project, it is still project – and cannot be counted yet. I don’t know if that one has exceeded the 1 minute of sustained generation yet.
You must know of course also that Russia is doing the ‘closed loop’ nuclear power generation, where there is no waste and the waste is not laden radioactively. China is doing about 6 of those and I may be wrong with that number – it is just what I know about. In addition, the search is on and the technology is growing for the small and enclosed nuclear power plants (fission or fusion) – the ones that you can pop in the middle of a housing development and hey presto, there is power.
Let me tell you something funny. I received a mail this morning from one of the other China watchers and authors and he is just shaking his head, saying: “I can’t keep up! Baba Beijing and the Chinese Nation are so unstoppably prolific with high-tech, innovation, invention, infrastructure, space and military, that I’ve created a hyperlink library.”
And wrote him back and said that’s cool but he better be prepared to create a whole hyperlink internet lol.
Hi Amarynth,
Yes that’s the one! Just recently, they managed to keep the reaction going for 100s (generating a temperature reached 120 Million Celsius)
https://www.globaltimes.cn/page/202105/1224755.shtml
According to experts, our energy future will be a mix of fossil fuels (in reduced quantity) offset by clean nuclear energy (fusion & fission)
I guess I was quite surprised to read China discussing hydrogen, renewables and lithium (which is not a renewable resource btw), when it appears these will have minimal future impact…(both energy-wise and climate-wise)
Wow! I am inherently scared of that thing. It will make an almighty blast if it goes kerfluueeee.
@Amarynth
Can you give some details about the population ageing issue in China? Aren’t they facing a real issue with that even before becoming a developed nation?
What are Xi’s solutions?
Man, I’ll make a note for the next Here Comes China sitrep. Probably in the next week if all goes well.
“Since humans and animals depend on plants for food, thus, CO2 is necessary for the survival of life on earth.”
Not to mention oxygen.
And CO2 is not pollution.
If they are serious about reducing pollution they could ban plastic packaging for a start and start using Hemp paper and derivatives. Using Cannabis varieties is renewable, sustainable and carbon efficient.
Let me give you a hypothetical. For a start, you have to produce energy for 1.4 B people. Your land for growing is limited. You are already maxing the productivity of land, vertical growing, rice in brackish water and a slew of food production innovations and you do not really want to use food production scarce resources, for growing energy.
Now, you have this ambitions belt and road project that is now stretching into South and Central America, and the world is energy-hungry and your project is energy-hungry. And power generation technology is changing and you want to stay on the bleeding edge of the technology curve – really, you want to invent new energies that are non-pollution on as many metrics as you can think of.
Would you grow Hemp? Can hemp provide energy for your new space station?
This is a straight hit on India. Anyways, the best source of power, the densest source of power, the most efficient source of power, the cleanest source of power is nuclear.
All this solar, wind etc all need more space than a nuclear power plant, gets you into a spend cycle where only a few win and once the gains are made, the others shamed and put into debt, there’ll be the next cycle of green tech. Without proving the previous tech even worked, to improve upon or it is even viable.
This green washing has nothing to do with climate change or CO2. This is to make poor countries poorer with technologies they cannot build or master and be stuck in a maintenance contract where it only gets egregarious year after year. What will be offered then, as a cheaper alternative will be the next revolutionary tech.
With VVER’s, thorium reactors, the technology has become safer and time might come it need not have water as cooling source (hence near seas or rivers or waterbodies). These run for 50+ years without touching.
With solar people don’t talk about the energy input into making the panels, the depletion of rare earth minerals, the amount of land it takes, the amount of copper cables being laid to run the power back to a substation, the number of batteries (and its cost to make) for storage etc etc.
If you add it all up, it’s a suckers deal.
good points Marfa,
it’s not just poor countries that will be poorer: Europe’s energy prices are soaring
https://www.euronews.com/2021/09/23/why-europe-s-energy-prices-are-soaring-and-could-get-much-worse
The EU have de-commissioned their coal, gas, nuclear energy plants and they refuse to provide regulatory approval to NS2 to allow import of Russian gas. i guess we shall see the performance of renewables real-time this winter in Europe…
Re: “𝘛𝘩𝘪𝘴 𝘪𝘴 𝘵𝘰 𝘮𝘢𝘬𝘦 𝘱𝘰𝘰𝘳 𝘤𝘰𝘶𝘯𝘵𝘳𝘪𝘦𝘴 𝘱𝘰𝘰𝘳𝘦𝘳 𝘸𝘪𝘵𝘩 𝘵𝘦𝘤𝘩𝘯𝘰𝘭𝘰𝘨𝘪𝘦𝘴 𝘵𝘩𝘦𝘺 𝘤𝘢𝘯𝘯𝘰𝘵 𝘣𝘶𝘪𝘭𝘥 𝘰𝘳 𝘮𝘢𝘴𝘵𝘦𝘳”
The real target appears to be Europe, and possibly other compliant developed countries. Developing/poor countries don’t have time for this self-indulgent nonsense; they are barely surviving in current conditions.
http://www.williamengdahl.com/englishNEO12July2021.php
I am not sure whether the motive is to level all down to serfdom as part of the Great Reset, or whether as Ishchenko noted years ago, the Anglo-US part of the Empire is in process of eating its former allies as resources to loot and plunder elsewhere have shriveled up.
Also note the plans for the German automobile industry on chopping blocks… Maybe the cargo for the nuclear ice-breakers is not destined for Europe at all!
Hemp products including fuel.
https://i.imgflip.com/5nwzbs.jpg
I think Peter Koenig is selling Hysteria, the CO2 levels have been at least four times higher in the past, when the CO2 is high the vegetation grows, He is from the World Bank and the WHO two organizations with an anti human pro Globalist Agenda!
Aargh, nonsense. Peter gave you a transcript of a high level meeting. Your choice if you want to become hysterical lol. In any event, he has been retired for years and has tirelessly championed the cause of the poor nations.
Voila! Electric batteries and liquid hydrogen. Why didn’t anyone else think of that!
Now where does the electricity and hydrogen come from? Hmm …. I know, electric turbines powered by …
Zero point energy (I guess most people already know this..but I have to bring it up to make a wider point)
We have all been living on planet deception(s)- put stock somewhere else/ something more infinite (I like the author’s approach- very well written- my point is not to derail the article – but to suggest life is not always possible to figure out from an anthropomorphic “one eye-ish ” perspective-
My apologies, I did not define: “one eye-ish”:
-symbolic for only seeing what is directly in front of one’s eyes
(not to be taken as literal one eye- as in one eye closed)
to those who say ,that plants need carbon to thrive. just ask a greenhouse grower ,what happens if you put to much carbon d,into the greenhouse. good luck.
While we are on power and China, just released, Meng Wanzhou can go home! After three years of being detained in Canada.
https://www.scmp.com/news/china/diplomacy/article/3150050/huawei-cfo-meng-wanzhou-expected-resolve-us-charges-brooklyn?module=lead_hero_story&pgtype=homepage
This is terrific news!
Maybe the scientists of the Doomsday Clock can move its hand back a half-minute or so.
One wonders what made a little sense enter the Canadians (and their US partners)?
The fallout from the AUKUS madness?
Part of arrangements with Russian Gen VV Gerasimov two days ago in Finland?
Trudeau’s re-election magic?
May we continue to hear this type of news
Before I retired in 1999, my adult career was spent as a laboratory technician in oil, nuclear and coal powered electricity-genarating plants.
I was working at a coal-fired power plant in 1992. I remember very well the, as Mr. Koenig states (with my bold), ” Earth Summit, held in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, from 3-14 June 1992. It set the stage for the reduction of greenhouse gases, the most important of which is Carbon Dioxide.”
The “stage” has been set for the reduction of greenhouse gases for the past 29 years and plans like the Kyoto Accord have been adopted, as well as others. For example, there is supposedly now in effect a greenhouse gas reduction plan that has a goal-date of 2050 — guess what? 29 years from today! What a coincidence!
(Just curious. What was the human population in 1992? Roughly 5.5 billion people. What is the human population today — again, 1992 plus 29 years equals 2021? Roughly 7.9 billion people — and INCREASE of 2.4 billion people. https://www.worldometers.info/world-population/ )
(BTW, the “Canadian” city in which I live has a population of roughly 1 million people and $3.4 billion of so-far-unpayable debt. What is our City Overlords’ big plan for the future to both pay off the debt and REDUCE the CIty’s greehouse gas emissions from that of today (to kill two birds with one stone-of-a-plan)? The Big Plan is to double the population of the City to 2 million people, of course! And what if the city’s adult population doesn’t have enough babies? Import more people from other countries, of course! Great plan, eh? What is The Big Plan’s real chance of success? IMO, 0% and we’ll know that by the end of next year, at which time we will see that the City’s greenhouse gases have gone UP, not down; and the City’s debt will also have gone UP, not down. What is the chance that the City Overlords will admit that their plan has been, and will continue to be, a failure? IMO, 0%.)
To sum it all up, how have all these hopes and dreams and plans worked out so far when it comes to reducing the earth’s atmospheric CO2 over the past 29 years — you know, have they “flattened the curve”!? You tell me.
https://gml.noaa.gov/webdata/ccgg/trends/co2_data_mlo.pdf
In short, IMO, any plan that does not either reduce total greenhouse gas emissions from, or stablize greenhouse gas emissions to, the level of greenhouse gas emissions of 2021, is a failure; and the powers that be don’t need to wait until 2045 to announce that failure. They can make the announcement in 2022, but they won’t.
Ellen Brown recently wrote a very intriguing article about the cultivation of hemp to solve several environmental problems at the same time. IMO, it’s a very good idea well worth trying, initially, on a scale of at least a million acres.
https://ellenbrown.com/2019/07/25/the-cheapest-way-to-save-the-planet-grows-like-a-weed/
I cannot help to comment on this idea of hemp. Growing hemp for capturing CO2, and then utilizing it for bio-fuel. Imagine Bio-fuel energy plants driven by hemp! Imagine somebody sneaking in a truckload of quality cannibis into the plant. They will make a giant community bong, and we will be all happy together….
Interesting just today we had a townhall with corporate and our CFO talked about the move to renewables and such but what caught my interest was how much money is being invested by world governments into Hydrogen. 70 billion dollars!!! And Canada is one of the top leaders in the world so we are well positioned to take advantage. Upon hearing that it took me back to when I worked for Expo 86 and everyday practically there was news about Ballard Hydrogen Fuel Cells. The hoopla over it was enormous and buy its stock etc etc. I had to laugh that just a few years ago I overheard a conversation that they power little more than forklifts and such today? Wow, i said too myself that is quite a jump from the glory days of 1986? Mentioning this to one of the engineers about Ballard which he worked for and he summarized it all up with the only company in the world that will be able to make a real go of it is Toyota. ‘They are the only ones who have the money, resources, infrastructure to make it happen. Now this from our CFO about practically every country turning the money tap on for this technology. In our own company we have created a new role for one of our engineers and are in the process of building our own hydrogen compressor. The costs are huge however, but the bigger problem is the supply chain for the needed parts.
Carbon neutral is a pipe dream and as far as I am concerned and it will not help climate change at all {read bible} the real concern is or should be water. i will never forget watching that report of children in China getting excited over a lake the color of which was a beautiful red. The children couldn’t wait to go for swim and it looked really paradise like indeed. The article though ended with the death of the children for what they unfortunately stumbled across was a tailing pond from some industrial activity. Nice eh?
Isn’t that the story of China? Of every industrial country of the world actually! Money- what we will do for it is truly astounding. Next up Evergrade or grand or whatever they called it.
There are the known- knowns:
1) We need energy
2) Energy needs are a mix of money and government regulations (ala petrodollar)
Then there are the unknown – knowns:
1) We do not know what money and government think, or will be “advised” to think in relation to said energy needs
Then there are the unknown -unknowns:
1) we do not know who is advising the advisers to the advisors
So due to the fact we are not including “this” in the discussion of energy- it technically would be somewhat untenable to know “what” is going to happen (or what our actual choices are)
One can think what one wants about the reality of climate change, but one needs to at least acknowledge the reality of climate change impacting world politics. For increasingly large swaths of peoples, and many key world leaders, climate change is real enough to make it become the world’s number one issue. World politics are being drawn around it. All the major politico-economic systems in the world have based their power on hydro-carbon fuels, and their positioning against global competition is dependent on it. So it is rather unique to see any of these systems, be it the Anglo-West empire, China, Russia, or even the EU to willingly step away from their “power source” not matter how virtuous the cause in the long term is. (As world leaders seem to have an infatuation with leaving legacies, maybe they realize that they will not be leaving any legacy behind should half the world’s population be suddenly snuffed out in a couple generations?) Anyway, countries are stepping up to the Paris accords and making pledges. Even Vladimir Putin has made a commitment to bring Russia’s greenhouse gas emissions to be less than the European Union’s within the next thirty years. The U.S. says it wants to be carbon neutral by 2050 with an interim goal to reduce emissions by fifty percent by 2030. The European Union has a similar goal. I believe China’s pledge to become carbon neutral is by 2060 (that is unless they said something new in the past couple days.) Given the utility of hydro-carbon fuels in making power, and the competition amongst politico-economic systems, will these systems really live up to the commitments they are making, or is this all just some ruse? As for the U.S.A., the Biden administration put forth this infrastructure plan that was being sold as a green new deal initiative that is to change the country’s infrastructure to be carbon free. However, looking into it, the infrastructure bill is funding mostly the expansion of traditional legacy infrastructures, e.g. roads, bridges, airports, which will only increase hydro-carbon fuel consumption. China is still proceeding with coal plants within China itself thus ensuring it remains the low cost economic engine in the world; at least long enough to squash whatever competition remains in the world before they really go green. Interesting how in politics one thing is said, but something entirely different happens.
“Carbon neutral by 2050?” Should b a lot sooner than that, I believe, if our “luck” holds, and the economic forums recommendations (you know which one) give their full support and backing. There is a new credit card (duck duck go it) that gives one a score based on (by tracking) your Carbon footprint. It gives one a “social score” (akin Chinese social scorecard) and if one exceed your allotted limit one’s credit stops.
Deception Ponzi planet.
419 parts per million is about 4 molecules per 10 000, less than 0.5 promille. Perhaps it is only me, but I am not convinced that so little CO2 is responsible for climate change. Moreover, between 1998 and 2013 there was next to no change in the average world temperature, according to the 2013 report from the climate panel of UN.
Maybe the real story on the subject can be found here:
/book-review-andrei-martyanovs-the-real-revolution-in-military-affairs/#comment-729151
Cheers
Most of our politicians don’t get the idea what looming decrease of population really means for nations. This huge change is just behind the corner.
Extinction rebellion, Climate change, are a global mafia style cover up for human contempt ; a natural disaster causing death and chaos is not important, world leaders now use this to promote the big agenda, witness Merkel recently in Germany after the floods as one example. It’s the same in every country, the human aspect is ignored and only the chilling and ruthless drive for money and global government dominance, citing care of the earth as their concern is voiced. Millions of people read and hear this and are numbed.
Materialism is greed, hatred and violence realized.
Apologies to anyone reading this who has chosen the path of the dammed.
Interesting that an essay popped up today on the ourfiniteworld blog by Gail regarding
https://ourfiniteworld.com/2021/09/25/could-we-be-hitting-natural-gas-limits-already/
Heres a morsel on Russia:
Russia+ is by far the world’s largest exporter of natural gas. Even with Russia+’s immense exports, its total exports (about 10 exajoules a year, based on Figure 7) still fall short of Europe’s natural gas import needs (at least 12 exajoules a year, based on Figure 6). The dip in Russia+’s natural gas exports in 2020 no doubt reflects the fact that Europe’s imports fell in 2020 (Figure 6). Since these exports were mostly pipeline exports, there was no way that Russia+ could sell the unwanted natural gas elsewhere, lowering its total exports.
At this point, there seems to be little expectation for a major rise in natural gas exports from Russia+ because of a lack of capital to spend on such projects. Russia built the new Nord Stream 2 pipeline, but it doesn’t seem to have a huge amount of new natural gas exports to put into the pipeline. As much as anything, the Nord Stream 2 pipeline seems to be a way of bypassing Ukraine with its exports.
Cheers